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BLANCHE. 



BLANCHE ; 



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OF 



THE ANGEL TOWER 



BY 



BARAH WARNER BROOKS. 



How COULD I BEAK TO LIE CONTENT AND STILL BENEATH A STONB, 
And SEE MINE OWN BETROTHED GO BY— ALAS I NO MOEE MINE OWN— 

go leading by in wedding pomp some lovely lady be ave, 
With cheeks that blushed as sed as bose while mine were cold 
IN GEAVE ? Mrs. Browning. 



NEW-YORK: 
EuDD & Carleton, 130 Grand Street. 

M DCCC LXI. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 

ISAAC A. BROOKS, 

In the Clerk's OflEice of the District Court for the Southern District of 
New- York. 



PART 



r elttbe . 



Ah ! wlio is not glad in the Spring-time, 

When Earth is a-throb with unrest ; 
Feeling the beautiful unborn Summer 

Leap, under her bare brown breast? 
Already the king-cups dot the meadows, 

In yellow kirtles bedight j 
And the rounded buds in the hawthorn hedges 

Are tenderly touched with white. 
The robin [sits hard by his cradle, 

Daintily wickered, I ween. 
And trills long rollicking roundelays, 

With snatches of plaint between. 

In silvery zigzag through the cowslips; _ 

Like school-weary urchins, set free, 
1* 



10 BLANCHE. 

The merry rills, with innocent prattle, 
Kun home to the mother Sea. 

Ah ! there winters no heart in the wide-world, 
But leaps to the blessed Spring ; 

For Hope will come with the robins 
To build in the soul and sing. 



PAET FIEST 



LoED Herbert hath wedded the Lady Blanche 

And the gentles far and wide. 
Come merrily up to Koseland Court, 

To kiss the hand of the dainty bride. 
And Wilfred comes hither among the rest — 

A Painter of low degree; — 
Yet honored of lady, and lord, in sooth. 

For a limner rare, is he. 

The guests are departing, one by one — 
Sated with tourney and chase — 

*^ And now, by the rood," Lord Herbert saith, 
"Thou shalt paint me my lady's face." 



12 BLANCHE, 

Then out-spake Wilfred, with downcast eyes, 
" My Lord, I am bold to dare ; 

Yet never, I wis, may my canvas hold 
A copy of aught so fair. 

'' I must dip my brush in the summer noon 

For a hue befitting her eyes ; 
And steal for the wavy sheen of her hair — 

The gold of the warm sunrise. 
The pale, pale rose, must unlock its heart. 

And lend me a blush for her cheek. 
And the crimson dew on her lovely lip 

Must be of the tulip's warmest streak. 
I must borrow a sculptor's marble dream — 

By his fiery soul made warm — 
And Venus — (bereaving the gods of her eyes) — 

Must yield me the lines of her form." 

Quoth- Herbert,^ " In sooth, thy fancies hit 
The heart of my love, and pride ; 

An' furnish thy pallet wherever thou wilt, 
Grood Wilfred, but paint me my bride." 



BLANCHE. 13 

At Koseland, a turret that cleaves the sky 

Is christened the " Angel Tower ;" 
And there, (in a home sick mood for heaven,) 

The Lady Blanche hath made her bower. 
And never had sea-nymph daintier chamber, 

Down in her cool dream-haunted dells — 
Builded of coral, and silk sea-mosses, 

And frescoed with pink-lipped shells. 

It is paneled with rare and costly woods, 

All brought from odorous Indian bowers — 
The delicate woods, that embalm in their grain 

The scented souls of their flowers — 
And carpeted, like to the wood, in spring, 

"With tufted mosses of sober hue 
(When the shy Arbutus, veiled in leaves. 

Is bashfully peeping through.) 
Its hangings are silken, and softly blue. 

Like wells of noon in Italians skies — 
And looped ^with silver stars, that shine 

Like tender thoughts in lovely eyes. 
Bordered with costly and curious fringe 



14 BLANCHE. 

Edged out with tiny silver bells, 
That tinkle in lythm, to every air 

That wanders up from the breezy fells. 

And 'round about are carven chairs, 

Antique, of quaint device. 
And velvet couches, softer than dreams, 

And tables of marvelous price, 
(Mosaic'd as rainbows were deftly cut 

By daintiest lightning hands 
And bound from ^the girdle of starless ITight 

With satin-like ebony bands.) 

And mirrors that swept like molten seas 

To the floor, in fretted gold, 
(Praising her eyes alway — like lovers 

Enamored and over-bold). 
And marble nymphs ; and vases of bronze. 

And jars from China, (all wrought from veins 
Of grotesque thought, ^that ache and throb 

In her children's curious brains.) 
And amber glasses, graceful as swans. 

Where, snatched from the lap of Morn, 



BLANCHE. 15 

Droop blossoms of Orient breath, and white 

As the thoughts of a babe, new-born, 
A perfumed lamp in mid-air swung. 

Like a lazy silver bell ; 
And warm, through the windows of rainbow 
glass. 

The painted sunlight fell. 
On pictured saints and faces of angels. 

That shiningly looked from the wall — 
Divinest thoughts of consummate artists 

Embodied and perfected all. 

Saint Agnes was there, with a dream of glory- 
Enshrined in her lovely eyes ; 

And fair Cecilia, fainting with odors 
From the roses of Paradise. 

And maiden Madonna, pale with rapture. 
As the ^' Dove," serene and mild, 

"Were brooding her soul in shining silence — 
Begetting the Holy Child. 

And Christ, with a marble peace on his forehead. 
Besprinkling the sea with rest ; 



16 ' BLANCHE, 

And beautiful JoIid, calm-eyed and loving, 
From trances on Jesu's breast : 

And Magdalen, hiding her shamed beauty 
In a golden cloud of hair ; 

And pouring her soul on the feet of her Saviour 
To whiten and cleanse it there. 

And Gabriel, flashing the Godhead splendor. 

Severe, from his holy eyes, 
That scourge the secretest sins of mortals, 

Like "flaming swords " of Paradise. 
And clouds of passionless baby-angels, 

That erst had smiled on worlds of pain ; 
And drooped too soon, with a home^sick longing 

That bred them their wings again. 

At her 'broidery there, sings Lady Blanche, 
(Low, like the gurgle of streams,) 

Working, and weaving her innocent thoughts 
Into a golden web of dreams. 

Two daring knights of mortal mould, 
Have boldly scaled the Angel Tower, 



BLANCHE. 17 

And hither brings Wilfred his pallet and brush, 
To copy the lady in her bower. 

Then out-spake lovely, saucy Blanche — 
(Half angered with surprise,) 

Well worth I wis, it was, to see 
The pettish April in her eyes, 

" In sooth, my Lord, fair dames enough 

Mould in the dusty cobweb tower. 
And it likes me not to plan a tryst 

In your grand am's ghostly bower. 
Where is Agnes, who held with her beauti- 
ful eyes. 

The lion-heart of the bold Sir Guy ; 
And Inez, for whom a score of knights 

Eode into the ring to die? 
Tall Dian, the mighty huntress of men, 

Kirtled in green, for the chase ; 
Ursula, who slew five troubadours 

With the cruel scorn in her face ; 
Kowena, the bold-browed " queen of hearts,'' 

And the dreamy, night-haired Isidore : 



18 BLANCHE. 

Bianca, with brown Madonna eyes — 
Dame Ethel — and twenty more. 

'^ With never a minstrel to weave them in song, 

Or limner to burnish their charms, 
They moulder unheeded ; sad waifs of beauty. 

Thrust into Decay's cold arms ! 
The owlet that broods in the dusk of their bower 

Winks fretfully at the light, 
As they sweep the gloom with injured eyes — 

The haunted gloom of the dumb midnight. 
And thus it shall be, when the gentle saints 

Shall hight poor Blanche to the blest ; 
Some new-wedded lady, with jealous eyes. 

Shall bid her bide there with the rest !" 

She tossed him her words, -with a lightsome 
scorn ; 

(Idly, as smoke-wreaths curl to the skies,) 
But the jest lived only on her lips ; 

And the tears rained fast from her eyes. 
For lady, or peasant 'tis ever the same. 

Gentle or simple, it mattereth not — 



BLANCHE. 19 

There beateth and loveth no woman's heart 
But acheth, forlorn — to die forgot ! 

Lord Herbert hath ridden his brave roan steed 

(His is a bold and dauntless race,) 
With never a start, a shiver — or wink, 

Straight into the cannon's face, 
But " cowards in love, are the brave in war," 

And grieving beauty is fair — 
And tears from a gentle lady's eyes, 

A charge he ill can bear. 

He kissed her lips, and he kissed her eyes. 

And this fond but sinful oath, he swore — 
That never shall Lady-love lie in his arms 

When the gentle lady Blanche is no more. 
He swore it by all the tender stars. 

And the dearer light of her eyes ; 
He swore it by all his joys on earth, 

And his hopes of Paradise. 
He swore it by the blessed saints, 

And by Mary — mother, mild — 



20 BLANCHE. 

And alas ! he swore it by tlie death 
And the blood of her Holy Child ! 

And Inow, what aileth the Lady Blanche ? 

Her lovely lips are ashen white; 
And she shivers like one in wofnl dread, 

Poor lady! Caswell she might; 
For a shadow such as no mortal can make, 

Stands out in the face of the sun, 
And the castle clock — on the stroke of ten — 

Tolls forth a ghostly one. 
Yet Wilfred the painter, sits day after day 

In the Lady Blanche's dainty bower, 
Till he holds on his canvass a rarer face 

Than erst hath hung in the 'Angel-Tower. 



PART II. 



frdtiire. 



Now sliame on the graceless cliurl, dear Nature, 

Who gives thee a shrug, or a frown; 
"Who passes thee by in thy plain white kirtle. 

Or flouts thee in russet gown ! 
For him may unrelenting March uncover 

No crocus from under the snow ; 
Nor April — with violet breath — discover 

One bank where her darlings blow. 
Let never thy winsome May regale him 

With her lilac-scented morns, 
And if June shall fling him a handful of roses, 

Let her bleed him faint with the thorns; 
No lily for him o'erbrim her chalice 

With odors, in warm July; 



24 BLANCHE. 

May the red sun leer on his fields in August,^ 

Till the grasses whiten and die— 
Nor ever one scarlet gem of September 

Into his worthless lap be tost, 
And smite him blind while the trees in October 

Are holding their fiery Pentecost. 



PAET SECOND. 



IToT a green leaf hangs in the dun cold wood, 
Nor a wild flower blows on the lea ; 

But the Frost hath come, (that craftsman dumb,) 
And wrought them, fair as fair can be ! 

No blade of furze on the wide-moor. 
But weareth a string of pearls, 

Rarer than any gentle lady- 
May braid in her sunny curls. 

Fairer than famed Aladdin's garden, 
(By affluent Genii bedight,) 

The dream-like aisles of the jewelled forest 
Stand out in the clear noon-light. 



26 BLANCHE. 

No ermined queen, on her regal forehead 

Hath ever such diamonds wore. 
As the sharp wmd showers from tlie loaded 
branches, 

Over its fretted silver floor. 

Down in the gUide are fairy grottoes, 

Stuccoed with crystals, clear and white, 
Festooned with wreaths of silver arabesque 

Looped with opals, of changeful light. 
The meadows are sprinkled thick with sparklets 

As Night, at the Day-god's shout, 
Unbraiding the gems from her nebulous tresses, 

Had scattered them idly about. 
Ah, fine it would be, to hold the spell 

The Fairy brewed in a lily-chalice. 
And enchant with the dream of an hundred 
years 

The sheen of this frost-work palace !J 

" To-morrow," quoth Lady Blanche to her nurse, 
" To-morrow, breaks the Christmas morn ; 



BLANCHE. 27 

Right proud I were to get from Heaven 
My babe — the day our Lord was born !" 

And thus it befell; for the surly groom, 
At eve, o'er the fells must ride ; 

And bring with speed, through the cold moon- 
light, 
The leech to "my lady's" side. 

And wearily, all that woful night. 

She bode, in bitterest pangs forlorn, 
And the castle bells at day-break rang. 

For Eoseland's heir was born. 
But faint, and white as the hawthorn blow. 

When Noon rode up, she lay ; 
And looked from her waning eyes, the love 

Her lips might never say. 
For at sunset her gentle kinsfolk came — 

Came sweeping down, upon pinions white ! 
And up with them, through the crimsoned skies. 

The lovel}^ Lady Blanche was hight. 

Lord Herbert mourned her long and sore. 
Till his heart was like to break ; 



28 BLANCHE. 

And over the seas he journeyed then, 

To cherish his life for her boy's sweet sake. 

Sped on, by a restless discontent, 

Like a ghost, from land to land he stole ; 

(A dumb white ghost, that is doomed to glide 
In the wake of a murderer's soul!) 

He strode to the realm of the stern Frost-king, 

And stared him boldly in the face: 
He stood uncovered in silent awe, 

And saw the Morn with the Night embrace. 
He warmed his life in the fervid climes 

Where Nature noons, in scented calms; 
And waited for lethe through listless dreams. 

In the umbral shade of Orient palms. 
He heard the shepherd in Switzerland's vales 

Piping through lonely star-lit nights; 
And leaped like a chamois, from crag to crag, 

O'er the splintered Alpine heights. 

He stood by the Sphynx, on its ocean of sand. 
In the crimson calm of broad sunrise, 



BLANCHE. 29 

And knew his sonPs eternal questions 

Sublimed, in its mournful eyes ! 
He smoked his meerschaum with turbaned 
Turks ; 

He heard from Mecca's sunset - fanes. 
The "AUahj il Allah," — clear as the song 

Of Angels on Bethlehem's plains. 
He steeped his soul in the sensuous beauty 

Of Cashmere's voluptuous vales ; 
While the air was love-sick with sighs of roses, 

And wooings of nightingales. 

To dreamy, sunny Italia, he came. 

At the harvesting of vines ; 
And saw her maidens dance over the grapes, 

Till they melted to purple wines. 
He climbed her mountains, that swallow men — 

(Like monstrous hungry ghouls;) 
And groan like the fiery under-thought. 

Her tyrants have pent in human souls! 
Dumbly, he worshipped, beneath her arches. 

Conceived for the Presence sublime. 



30 BLANCHE. 

That fiUetli the spaces eternal ! contained not 
By walls that are builded in time ! 

He floated to music, in white moonlight. 

At Yenice, through aisles of streams; 
Serened as a sonl that leads through Heaven 

Its best-beloved in shining dreams ! 
Like a lover he lingered at Florence — 

"Who swooneth in exquisite tears. 
On the heart of the maiden, whose beauty 

Hath haunted his dreaming, for years. 

He tarried in cities full of noises, 

(Like mighty waters at strife ;) 
And laid his ear with a loving patience 

To the pulses of human life. 
In mouldy piles of antique ruin. 

He hunted, with stifled breath ; 
And saw how the infinite rills of being 

All flow to the ocean of Death. 



PART III. 



X tluin t ! 



Over the hills the brown-eyed Autumn 

Hath come in her crimson snood ; 
Stark-dead lieth the beautiful Summer, 

Covered with leaves, like '^ the babes in the wood*" 
Two months agone, in her bright green mantle, 

Walked the maiden, lusty and fair ; 
With knots of the Oleander in her bosom. 

And buds of the Tube-rose in her hair. 
Gaily she chatted with the reapers, 

Rustling the gold of her ripened sheaves. 

* This prelude is so entirely unconnected with the legend, that the 
reader will, I trust, pardon the apparent inconsistency of introducing 
an American autumn, in place of an English one. 



34 BLANCHE. 

And lightsomely running lier airy fingers 
Over lier harp, full-strung with leaves. 

She trimmed her mantle with silken tassels, 
Pulled from the juicy ears of corn — 

The cricket foreboded her doom, but lightly 
Laughed she the pensive prophet to scorn. 

At last, while she dreamed in the noiseless starlight, 

(Or ever the Night one tear had wept,) 
The Hoar-Frost came in his seed-pearl mantle, 

To kiss her eyelids, while she slept. 
Ah me, it was ill of the crusty Hoar-Frost 1 

But he touched her on lip and cheek ; 
And chilled her blue veins with his Arctic kisses 5 

Yet never a word did he speak. 

Then danced she no more on the breezy hill-tops 5 

But faint and wan, in the valleys low 
She lingered, to fringe the lids of the Gentian, 

And deepen the Aster's purple glow. 
She saw through the rustling woods, fair Autumn 

Come up, in her crimson pride ; 
And then, on her couch of Golden-Kod 

Composing her lovely limbs, — she died. 



BLANCHE. 

To dance at her grave comes an Indian maiden 

With tufts of the oriole in her hair : 
A scarlet necklace, of seeded berries, 

Droops over her bosom, tawny and bare ; 
A mantle of mist from her rounded shoulders 

Is folded away in gauzy curls ; 
By the winking starlight, in silvery meadows, 

She beadeth her moccasins with pearls, 

The red man, ambushed in sleepy valleys, 
(Shapely as Yenus from the foam,) 

Beheld her rise from a purple mist-wreath, 
And bore her in triumph home. 

Day, after day, she tended the hunters, 
Scouring the forests and streams — 

Cloud-like and fair as the phantom-maidens 
The Poet may kiss in his dreams. 

There is never a fire in the Indian's wigwam, 
Nor smoke from his calumet curled ; 

And noiselessly as a dream at sunrise, 
He is passing on — from the world. 

Yet ever, still, when the maple forests 
Have showered their crimson rain, 



36 BLANCHE. 

The phantom maid, from the misty valleys 

Comes back to her haunts again 
In the calm red sunrise she braids her tresses, 

Glassed in her mirror of molten streams, 
She groups the sunset clouds for the Painter, 

And steeps the Poet in honey-dreams. 
The old man leans on his staff to bless her ; 

The children nod to her at their play ; 
And scores, upon scores, of enamored lovers 

Adore her, and woo her to stay ! 



PAKT THIED 



There is never a gem in the crown of Autumn 
The tangled hedges are lean and spare. 

And the rifled giants, in frantic fury, 

Are tossing their long arms, brawny and bare, 

The weird-voiced winds, like sorrows eternal, 
Unsoothed in the soul, complain ; 

In Eunic rythm, at the castle windows, 
. Chanteth the weary — weary, rain. 

"God shield my lord" — quoth the henchman 
Archie — 
"By the saints, 'tis a fearful night!" 



38 BLANCHE. 

And lie trimmed the fire in the oaken parlor, 
And lit the candles, tall and white. 

Loud winds the horn at the castle portal, 
Over the wind, and over the rain. 

Climb the shouts like pealing thunder! 
Lord Herbert hath come to his own again. 

"God save my lord" — aye, and "save" my 
lady;— 

For over the threshold, in his arms. 
With rain-pearls beaded in her tresses. 

Bears he a bride of marvelous charms. 
Ah ! fair is the pale, pale, English lily. 

With the blush rose in her hand. 
But the foreign Jasmin is creamy, with kisses 

From the lips of her sun-bright land. 
And warm, and sweet as the Summer twilight. 

With tresses that sweep the floor — 
And cheek, where the red rose leans on the 
olive, 

Is the beautiful Spanish Lenore. 
A spell in her lotus-eyes hath witched him 

To sell his soul to the Fiend ; — and now 



BLANCHE. 39 

Heavily hangs o'er the house of Herbert, 
The curse of a broken vow. 

There is wassail and cheer to-night, at Kose- 
land ; 

Like water the blood-red wine is poured ; 
And heavily over Lord Herbert's soul 

Hangeth the "hair suspended sword." 
The candles waste in their silver sockets; 
i~;The fitfal flame on the broad hearth dies, 
Dead Blanche looks over the carven mantle — 

Staring, with strange and stony eyes. 

" 'Tis the storm-wind," he murmurs, " that 
swings 

The fringe of bells in the Angel-tower." 
Yet well knows Lord Herbert the rythmical 
step 

Of the Lady Blanche in her lonely bower. 
Wearily, mournfully, all night long. 

Over the tufted floor it stole. 
Patiently — quietly, falling like tears 

That are wrung from a grieved soul. 



40 BLANCHE. 

And well may the gentle lady grieve, 

For there she must walk, I trow. 
Till the chamber wall to ruin fall, 

To scourge the sin of a broken vow. 
He shall hear her in revels, over his wine, 

Or conning his midnight lore ; 
But most — when he pillows in gentle dreams. 

The head of the fair Lenore. 
Till the step — as light as a zephyr's kiss 

On the lip of the heather-bell, — 
Shall be, to his perjured soul, like the tramp 

Of demons, pacing the floor of Hell! 

Lord Herbert hath scarce turned thirty and five. 

Yet his locks are silvered with grey. 
And his eye hath the weary look of a soul 

That hath sinned, and dare not pray. 
He cools to the kisses of his bride, 

And tires of his boy-heir's winsome charms ; 
Till foremost in battle, he rides to Death, 

Like a lover to Beauty's arms. 



SONG OF DECAY. 



" When baby Earth, in her rounded beauty. 

Awoke from the bosom of Night — 
Leaped forth from the arms of the mournfiil Chaos — 

To play with the silver fringes of Light : 

Then, then — from the teeming womb of Nature ; 

(While chorus'd with Angels the stars of the Morn,) 
In twin-throes, with Life, my beautiful brother, 

Silently, secretly — I was born ! 

My brother was winsome, and fair, and shapely ; 

And our Dame, ye wot, is a cunning wight ! 
I was but a poor misshapen changeling ; 

And she carefully tucked me out of sight. 



42 BLANCHE. 

Slie thrust me under my brother's table ; 

And there am I fed from day to day ; — 
Ha ! ha ! but I feast there ! and fatten, and fatten. 

On the crumbs he wantonly flings away ! 

She is rich, ye wot, is Mother Nature — 

An' quoth she, "I will treat this monster fair ; 

Life, beautiful Life ! must reign over my kingdom 
And Decay will I make his heir." 

Life hath maidens to dance in his festal palace ; 

In moulds of the rarest beauty cast ; 
In his garden are roses, and oaks in his fores t-» 

Ha ! ha I they are all to be mine at last !" 



The years and the curse alike have sped ; 
No Herbert claims now, the fair broad 
lands ; 

Where the castle proud in the sunlight 
stood, 
A crumbling pile of ruin stands. 



BLANCHE. 43 

Tlie peasant hath kindled his homely fire 

With costly splinters from Blanche's bower ; 
And the owlet hath quilted her nest with 
shreds 

From the silver fringe in the Angel Tower. 
And Blanche, (serened in the blessed skies) 

Hath looked grievingly down, ere now, 
Eepenting the dread of a harmless loss. 

That won from her lord that sinful vow. 



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